The Memory Garden Read online

  Praise for Rachel Hore’s first novel The Dream House

  ‘A beautifully written and magical novel about life, love and family . . . tender and funny, warm and wise, the story of one woman’s search for the perfect life which isn’t quite where she thought she would find it. I loved it!’

  CATHY KELLY

  ‘What a treat! I devoured it over the weekend. It’s so very real and utterly unputdownable’

  CHRIS MANBY

  ‘I loved it. It’s brilliantly evocative, wonderfully romantic and it kept me guessing right through to the end. It was so engrossing, in fact, that I had to lock myself away most of the weekend so I could be allowed to finish it . . . The Dream House is also more than a little unnerving for those thousands of naive optimists (self included) who’ve recently downsized themselves’

  DAISY WAUGH

  ‘I found this a totally absorbing, intriguing and romantic read, and the period detail, in particular, was beautifully evoked. A wonderfully atmospheric debut by a writer to watch’

  ISABEL WOLFF

  ‘The Dream House is a book that so many of us will identify with. Moving from frenzied city to peaceful countryside is something so many of us dream of. Rachel Hore has explored the dream and exposed it in the bright light of reality, with repercussions both tragic and uplifting, adding her own dose of magic. It’s engrossing, pleasantly surprising and thoroughly readable’

  SANTA MONTEFIORE

  ‘I enjoyed it enormously and was genuinely disappointed when I got to the end, having read deep into the night to finish it because I couldn’t put it down! I was completely drawn to the plot. I thought it a wonderfully evocative and cleverly woven story’

  BARBARA ERSKINE

  ‘Warm, very true to life and totally engrossing’

  JENNY COLGAN

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  First published in Great Britain by Pocket Books UK, 2007

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Rachel Hore, 2007

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  Pocket Books & Design is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  The right of Rachel Hore to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  Africa House

  64–78 Kingsway

  London WC2B 6AH

  www.simonsays.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia

  Sydney

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-1100-7

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-2717-5

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  Typeset in Palatino by M Rules

  Printed and bound in Grey style="font-

  For David

  and to Ann Boase, Pearl’s granddaughter, p cs.in memory of his father,

  e Memory Garden

  We are here to learn both light and dark; without one the other cannot be. Black shows up the white, purple enhances yellow, rough gives value to smooth.

  Dame Laura

  e Memory Garden

  Merryn Hall, Lamorna, Cornwall, TR20 9AB

  Ms Melanie Pentreath

  23a Southcote Road

  Clapham

  London SW12 9BL

  15 March 2006

  Dear Mel,

  Thanks for returning the agreement to rent the Gardener’s Cottage and for the cheque. I’m enclosing your receipt and a map giving directions from Penzance.

  I’m looking forward to meeting you here at Merryn Hall next month. As I said on the phone, I shall probably still be up in London when you arrive, but Mrs Irina Peric, who looks after the place for me, will give you the key to the cottage. Could you ring her a couple of days beforehand on 01736 455836 to tell her when to expect you?

  I’m sure you will find Lamorna a peaceful haven for your studies – it’s an enchanting place. As your sister will have told you, I have only recently inherited the Hall and you will see there is an awful lot of work to be done to the house and grounds. However, you should find the cottage is comfortable enough.

  Yours sincerely,

  Merryn Hall, Lamorna

  Adeline Treglown

  The Blue Anchor

  Harbour Street

  Newlyn

  Easter Monday, 1912

  Dear Mrs Treglown,

  My cook, Mrs Dolly Roberts, who I believe to be your sister-in-law, has let it be known that you are seeking a position for your girl and she assures me the young woman is sober, honest and industrious.

  I have need of a general housemaid I can also train up as lady’s maid, and Pearl sounds most suitable. My gardener, Mr Boase, takes the trap to Penzance every market-day and, should it serve, can fetch her next Thursday from by the Davy statue at twelve noon. I can pay her twelve guineas but keep back 6d a month for her uniform.

  I was most sincerely sorry to learn of your troubles.

  Yours trul rel="styleshe

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 1

  Cornwall is a great place to lose yourself, Mel reflected with a sense of unease as she turned off the crackling car radio and peered through the rain-lashed windscreen into pitch darkness. She had simply no idea where she was going. Even at a snail’s pace, negotiating the meandering country lanes with their steep embankments was like steering on a rollercoaster, the stony hedgerows rearing up in the glare of the headlights with heart-stopping suddenness.

  A mile and a half out of Newlyn, turn left past the pottery on the crossroads, Patrick had scrawled in thick-nibbed fountain pen at the bottom of the photocopied map he had sent. But Mel hadn’t noticed a pottery sign in the dark and had veered left at what she hoped hadn’t been the wrong junction. Why did all these little roads appear to go round in circles, she asked herself crossly, and why were there hardly any signposts?

  It was a pity this had proved such a nightmare journey, for Mel had been looking forward to this trip for ages. Ever since David Bell, the Senior Tutor at the college in South London where she was a lecturer in Art History, had suggested she take a term’s study leave. His words of warning still rang in her ears: ‘If you don’t have some time away, Mel, I’m frightened you’ll make yourself ill.’


  There were more ways than one of losing your bearings, she thought miserably as she steered the car around yet another bend . . . what was that! She slammed her foot on the brake as a missile hurtled out of the dark. An owl – she glimpsed a dazzle of shiny eyes above a curved beak before the bird swerved off into the night a second before impact. Mel sat for a moment in shock, then, her heart still thumping, eased her foot off the brake and the car rolled forward once more. Only for her to lurch to a stop again around the next corner: a T-junction. Which way now, for goodness’ sake? She wrenched up the handbrake, glanced at the clock – eight-fifteen, it really was dark for an April evening – and stabbed on the navigation light.

  In the weak beam Mel squinted at Patrick’s map, flexing her neck and shoulders against the beginnings of a headache. Her finger traced the faint lines of roads all running into one another, then along the one she was seeking. It zig-zagged past Merryn Hall, before turning left through the village of Lamorna and down to Lamorna Cove itself.

  She wound down the window and leaned out, shivering, peering through the rain for a signpost, a landmark, to match up with the map. But there was nothing. She must be very near Lamorna now, surely, but if she wasn’t careful she might be driving around all night. She took her duffel bag from the passenger well and scrabbled about for her mobile, then tapped in the contact number Patrick had underlined at the top of the map. The words ‘no network coverage’ flashed up on the screen.

  I wish Jake were here. The treacherous voice crept unbidden into her mind. Jake had a knack with maps and cars as well as {font-size: 80%; Q it all with cats and televisions. Unfortunately, in the end, he hadn’t had a knack with Mel. Jake was gone and she would have to get out of this mess by herself.

  The thought gave her resolve. It was a nuisance, but she would just have to retrace her route. Hoping another car wasn’t going to careen around the corner at this particular moment, she executed a five-point turn in the small space available and set off back the way she had come. Luck was on her side, for after a few minutes she found what she had missed the first time – a narrow road leading off to the left.

  Lamorna was in a valley, so her hopes rose when the road started to wind downhill, the hedges towering on either side. After a while the slope became steeper, the twists in the road more regular and every ounce of her concentration was required to keep the car on the road. At least the rain seemed to be easing.

  She began to look out for signs of habitation. A short while later, the hedgerow on her side gave way to a low stone wall lined with trees. Soon a pair of gate-posts loomed in the darkness. She slowed the car. Could this be it? She lowered the side window to look. A battered board, half-covered in ivy, hung lop-sided from one post. The words ‘erryn Hal’ were just visible on the cracked paint. Relief flooded through her as she swung the car between the posts.

  Pitch black. No, she could glimpse a small blur of light, there, in the distance between the black hulks of trees. The headlights picked out a winding muddy drive full of potholes and lined with great banks of vegetation on either side.

  The rain had stopped at last and she bumped the car down the drive for a couple of hundred yards until, before her, the yellow glow of a porch lantern picked out two great columns of a Georgian portal. At its base, three semicircular steps rippled out towards a battered flagstoned forecourt grown up with weeds. The porch light was the only sign of life.

  Mel hesitated, then parked at the edge of the forecourt and switched off the engine. She sat for a moment listening, gazing around, trying not to think about all those corny Gothic horror films she had watched as a teenager, the ones in which the heroine arrives at the dark deserted castle on a stormy night, seeking sanctuary, only for the front door to creak open and the terror to begin . . .

  Pull yourself together, she thought. There are no vampires in Cornwall.

  As far as you know . . . the words, spoken in a creepy voice, as frequently rehearsed by her brother William when they were children, floated into her mind.

  Oh, don’t be silly, she remonstrated with herself. There is no point sitting here if you want supper and somewhere to sleep. So she pushed open the car door.

  The only sound was the dripping of rain on leaves. The house waited in the damp darkness, the glass in the windows reflecting ebony in the porch light. She could just make out a pattern of crenellations in the stone, like castle battlements, high above the porch, disappearing left and right into the gloom. Trees, shrubs and brambles grew right up to the Hall on either side of the courtyard, and indeed across the front of the house so that in the dark she could gain only a limited sense of the scope of the frowning building. The cumulative effect was of desolation and decay, and of something more ominous.

  The last drops of Mel’s little stock of courage drained away. There was hardly need to knock on the door, for the house was clearly empty. After her long journey from one world into another there was no one to meet her, no welcome. Just this great hulk of a place that almost willed her to go away.

  When a cracking noise came from the undergrowth summerhouseis c f, she spun round, all senses suddenly alert. She waited; the darkness waited. It must be a bird, she told herself, but her head throbbed with tension. She was, after all, alone in the remotest part of wild Cornwall in what felt like the middle of the night. And she had a strange sense that someone was watching her.

  She looked up at Merryn Hall and shivered. What had she expected to find? A pretty cottage nestling in the manicured grounds of a small country mansion? A warm welcome, old-fashioned country hospitality? In his letter, Patrick had prepared her for something a bit crumbly, but not this . . . It was the desertedness and the air of, yes, of lurking menace, that bothered her.

  Who was Patrick, come to think of it? A friend of a university friend of her sister Chrissie’s. Someone Chrissie herself hardly saw now and whom Mel had never met.

  Scenes from her nephew Rory’s favourite Disney video flashed through her mind. She could be a modern Beauty, coming upon the Beast’s castle in a wilderness, seeking sanctuary and finding something quite different. Though in her elderly leather jacket, mud-splashed jeans, and with her red hair lank, she would hardly be first in line for the part of Beauty.

  Feeling braver, she pulled her bag off her shoulder and walked towards the porch, intending to try the bell just in case. It was then she noticed something fluttering against the flaked paint of the front door. Up the steps she pulled a folded piece of paper out from under the brass knocker and pinched it open. A message was pencilled in sloping block capitals:

  DEAR MEL,

  FORGIVE ME. I WAITED UNTIL SEVEN O’CLOCK BUT NOW I MUST LEAVE TO FETCH MY DAUGHTER. IF YOU DRIVE FURTHER DOWN THE ROAD THERE IS A LITTLE LANE TO THE COTTAGE. THE KEY IS UNDER THE MAT. I WILL CALL IN TOMORROW.

  YOURS RESPECTFULLY,

  IRINA PERIC

  Mel studied the formal phrases, the carefully drawn letters. On the phone, Irina spoke with an Eastern European accent, stressing the first syllables of words and softly rolling her r’s.

  The matter drifted to the back of her mind. Her attention was already on climbing back into the car and continuing down the road to find the cottage before she dropped with exhaustion. As she felt in her pocket for her key, she looked up to see the clouds were thinning and a most beautiful moon emerged in a veil of mist to illuminate her way.

  It was another twenty minutes before Mel shut the front door of the Gardener’s Cottage behind her and surveyed the pile of luggage sprawled across the hallway. Supper in a moment, she told herself, eyeing the carrier bag containing the small stock of food she had culled from her store cupboard at home. Supper then unpack what she needed for the night. That was all she could face now with her headache taking hold. She was weary, bone weary.

  She let out a long breath, then, defying cautious animal instinct, she marched down the hall and began to explore the cottage, turning on all the lights as she went. There was a sitting room to the right of the
long hall, before the stairs, a room with a polished dining table and chairs to the left; at the back, a dingy kitchen with a round pine table, beige Formica worktops, a fridge, stocked with dairy products, and a washing machine. Overhead, the strip light flickered and hummed. Turning it on and off several times failed to cure the problem. Beyond the kitchen was a stone-floored bathroom with a white he felt her face grow hot.u of suite but no shower.

  Upstairs were two bedrooms and a boxroom. All neat and clean, though the furniture was shabby. Making her way carefully back down the steep staircase with its faded runner she noted the chipped paint on the rough stone wall and saw exactly why Patrick had trouble letting the place. It would be fine for her for the next month. Comfortable, shabby but strangely familiar. Today’s well-to-do holidaymakers demanded modern fittings, fresh paint and shiny new furniture.

  Her plan was to spend the month walking in the footsteps of some of the painters who had settled in and around the nearby fishing town of Newlyn and Lamorna at the turn of the twentieth century, surveying the places they had painted, visiting museums and archives and working up her notes into a book she had been commissioned to write. This she would finish on her return to London. It was a chance to immerse herself in her work . . . and to give herself a break from the troubles of the previous year.

  The Gardener’s Cottage did feel like home – too much like home, Mel saw as she dumped the bag of food on the kitchen table and opened a wobbly cupboard door to find herself staring at her mother’s breakfast china: white porcelain with tiny hedgerow flowers painted around the rim. She picked up a cereal bowl and turned it in her hands. Every morning of her childhood for as far back as she could remember, Mel had scraped her spoon over this pattern . . . and for an awkward minute she was back with her brother and sister in their cheerfully messy Victorian semi in the leafy suburbs of Hertfordshire, rushing to finish breakfast as their mother, Maureen, smart with suit and briefcase, chivvied them to get into the car now or they would have to walk to school.